GCZ!GCZ!GCZ!You are a hero to everyone who has ever chickened out when it comes to asking out crushes.(don't forget to cut a hole in the bottom of the popcorn bucket for extra creepiness... Wait, no nevermind)

I got work crush's number yesterday!!!!... and apparently didn't save it correctly in my phone and lost it! So now I have to be sneaky and get it off the wall at work. Thankfully he's not working today so he won't see that part.

I've never known any women to not ask a guy out because it isn't something women do or should do. It's always an angsty shyness thing.

Well, except for these weird courtship only girls who didn't believe in any dating except when their dad would tell them to get married. Let's not count them.

Yeah that's what I was saying--I don't think it's an issue of being a feminist or not, it's an issue of shyness, or something like that.

Except that it's still more common for men to ask women out than vice-versa, so women can more easily get away with shyness and angst and (I suspect, anyway) there's more pressure on men to "have to" get over that. I mean, the only reason I've never asked a guy out is abject fear but if social norms dictated that I was "supposed to" be the instigator, I suppose I'd have made an effort to get over that like 25 years ago. Or maybe all of that is just my age talking and it's way closer to 50-50 amongst you young 'uns. The media doesn't seem to think so, though.

I'm with RC, plenty of my lady friends pine away wondering why a certain guy doesn't ask them out... I always remind them they could ask him out, but then they use all these justification for why they're not.

I've never known any women to not ask a guy out because it isn't something women do or should do. It's always an angsty shyness thing.

Well, except for these weird courtship only girls who didn't believe in any dating except when their dad would tell them to get married. Let's not count them.

Yeah that's what I was saying--I don't think it's an issue of being a feminist or not, it's an issue of shyness, or something like that.

Except that it's still more common for men to ask women out than vice-versa, so women can more easily get away with shyness and angst and (I suspect, anyway) there's more pressure on men to "have to" get over that. I mean, the only reason I've never asked a guy out is abject fear but if social norms dictated that I was "supposed to" be the instigator, I suppose I'd have made an effort to get over that like 25 years ago. Or maybe all of that is just my age talking and it's way closer to 50-50 amongst you young 'uns. The media doesn't seem to think so, though.

Totally agree with this.

I've asked many guys out, and the relationships have always crashed and burned horribly. This is apparently because the kinds of guys I ask out then expect me to do EVERYTHING in the relationship and tend to take me for granted and treat me kind of lukewarm. I've always wondered if this is because I have a specific type that is bad for me that I go after, or if it's because being asked out by girls is novel to guys, so they figured "what the heck, since a cute girl asked, I guess I'll go out with her, even though I'm not particularly into her... it'd be interesting to see what happens!"

Either way, the unusually spectacular ouch-rate of such experiences has lead me to significantly dial back my pursuit of dudes, partially because, as Monkeytoes says, I don't HAVE to. I can totally get away with waiting for the dudes to come after me.

_________________Your heart is a muscle the size of a fistKeep loving, keep fighting

I've asked many guys out, and the relationships have always crashed and burned horribly. This is apparently because the kinds of guys I ask out then expect me to do EVERYTHING in the relationship and tend to take me for granted and treat me kind of lukewarm. I've always wondered if this is because I have a specific type that is bad for me that I go after, or if it's because being asked out by girls is novel to guys, so they figured "what the heck, since a cute girl asked, I guess I'll go out with her, even though I'm not particularly into her... it'd be interesting to see what happens!"

This is my situation as well, except I didn't realize it until I read your post. I just mentally went through the last few guys I've dated (in fact, I asked one out yesterday; waiting for him to call back) and realized that you and I have the exact same problem. Frustrating, to say the least.

_________________Sentients Radio - Find Sentients in iTunes, too!I like cats and elephants.

She looks A LOT younger than I assume she is (given you have to be at least 18 to work until closing) and I'm way taller than her (I'm 6'3). I just wouldn't want people to see us together and think there was something shady going on.

If there's anything to worry about, this is NOT it. My husband is 6'4", I am 5'1". When we started dating I was eating and easily looked 16. Get over it!

Update: totally frustrated. Why am I attracted to women who are unavailable? It's sick. It's like that joke from Annie Hall: I'd never want to be part of a club that would take someone like me for a member.

So anyway, I talked again with the woman I spoke about in the quote above, who will hereby be referred to as "ginger" because she's even more of a ginger than me. She seems really, really cool. She's 19. I'm 25. Does that make me too old for her?? It doesn't even matter though, because she has a live-in boyfriend. Ugh. Last time we talked at all, she seemed nervous. But this time the tables were totally turned. My voice started getting all quivery. It was bad. Some people might think this being uncomfortable shows we wouldn't be compatible, but I'm like that with everyone I'm attracted to. I'm just dysfunctional, I guess. But again, none of this matters, because she has a live-in boyfriend. Also, I'm not sure if she even knows my name. She called me Buddy Holly today because of my glasses, lol.

In other "frustrated with being attracted to unavailable people news" a beautiful coworker from another department, who I haven't gotten a chance to talk to that much, but seems nice, was made the head of my department, effective in January. Obviously I can't undermine her authority so she's off limits. To be honest though, she probably wouldn't be interested in me anyway. She has model-like looks and wouldn't be attracted to a mere mortal like me. Way out of my league.